Dr. Albert J. Mace Surgeon, horseman

Dr. Albert J. Mace, a retired Baltimore surgeon who also raced and bred thoroughbreds, died of a heart attack Thursday while visiting friends in New Port Richey, Fla. He was 73.

Services and burial will be private.

Dr. Mace was a fourth-generation doctor who practiced general surgery for 40 years from an office in the 2923 block of St. Paul Street in Baltimore.

He served on the house staff at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore and was an associate professor of anatomy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

He also served as a physician at McDonogh School for 30 years.

Dr. Mace retired in 1987 and divided his time between his home on McDonogh Road in Owings Mills and a family-owned condominium in Big Sky, Mont. He was the owner of the Foxleigh Farms racing stable in Owings Mills. Family members said his horses raced primarily at local tracks, including Pimlico and Timonium.

During the mid-1950s, Dr. Mace's interest in horses led him to develop a technique for operating on bowed tendons, an ailment of thoroughbred race horses.

Dr. Mace received a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 1939 and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1942.

Dr. Mace was born in Stemmers Run, Baltimore County, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather practiced general medicine. He was a 1935 graduate of Kenwood High School.